


Why I had to go away...

by asparagusmama



Series: Seasons AU - extras! [5]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst, Conflicted Emotions, Drinking, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Memories of Child Abuse, Mentions of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Parental Guilt, Strip Tease, Unhappy Childhood, drug taking, mentions of childhood physical abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 01:45:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2048583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chance meeting in a pub while undercover has a profound affect on both Hathaway and highlights Lewis' understanding of his James, his past and their relationship.</p><p>This is a missing scene from a yet unposted chapter of Poisoned Minds but really doesn't need to be seen as such, it works fine on its own as a stand alone story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why I had to go away...

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the beautiful song by Cat Stevens, 'Father and Son'
> 
> This is the last verse,
> 
> All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,  
> It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it.  
> If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them they know not me.  
> Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.  
> I know I have to go.

It was the third East Oxford pub that evening, yet another tucked between houses in yet another side road off Cowley Road of terraces built about a hundred years before. James really wasn’t sure how his boss was staying sober and driving when he appeared to be drinking pints of bitter in each pub they’d been in. James wasn’t quite as successful. He sat at the corner table listening to the background buzz of the conversations. The slope of a man’s shoulders a table two away from theirs, in the middle of the room, reminded him of someone he’d much rather forget. He tried to keep his ears open for potential drug deals or conversations concerning users who had come across weird reactions or fatalities, but the background hum made it difficult for him to tune into any one table’s or group of people’s conversation. It was also so hot, the dark gloomy Victorian architecture and brown and tan nineteen fifties decor increasing the humid heat of the hot, late August night. And it smelt. It smelt atrociously, of sweat and stale deodorant and aftershave and cigarette smoke from the smokers’ clothes.

“Nothing doing,” Lewis suddenly said in his ear. James looked up, startled; he had not heard him come back from the bar. “I mean, I’ve heard half a dozen arrestable conversations, but no leads.”

“Like what?” James asked, taking a swig of his fifth pint of the evening. They had agreed to turn a blind eye to all but the risk to life regarding crime. If everyone dealing dope or passing on stolen goods ended up arrested soon after they were seen in a pub then their cover would soon be blown. All Lewis was fixed on was finding the dealer who supplied the smaller dealers and getting to the root of the cutting.

“Young lad in the corner, he’s obviously trying to shift the proceeds of a burglary – flat screen TV, small TV/DVD, laptop, and bits and bobs.”

“Right.”

“And that man, by the window, he’d got a bag of ipods and ipads that are obviously off the back of a lorry. Then the older man, there, two tables away, dunno if he’d robbed a fishmonger's or what, but he’s selling fresh trout and salmon to some guys who must run a catering business. But to do business here, it’s obviously dodgy.”

“Probably poaching,” James muttered, looking across at the table two over from theirs again. This time the man with the familiar stooping shoulders was turned slightly in their direction. “Definitely poaching,” James said, a slight panic raising his voice half an octave. “’Excuse me Sir.” He stumbled to his feet and headed to the door through the crowds of people. 

The man caught James' angry glare as he stood and also jumped to his feet, his speed surprising in a man who looked to be in his mid fifties. “James! Jamie!” 

He followed James outside into the street.

More than a little surprised and incredibly curious, Lewis followed them both out.

*

In the street James panicked. He didn’t know where to go, which way to turn. He had not expected this at all. He pushed through the throng of smokers standing on the kerb near the pub door and turned left and ran. He stopped, breathless, a few yards down the street, as he saw the old, beaten up Land Rover. He couldn’t believe he was still driving the same old thing! James hated that bloody car from his childhood, but still, he leant on it, shaking, getting his breath back.

“Jamie. Sweetheart,” A hand landed on his shoulder and pulled, trying to get him to turn around. “My boy.”

James turned and pushed himself against the side of the four by four. “Dad. Hello.”

“What you doing here? Oh shit, you ain’t gonna nick your old man, are you? I mean...”

“Dad! As if!” James lowered his voice. “I’m undercover so keep your voice down. We make a deal, you don’t blow my cover and I won’t get my boss to nick you for selling poached fish.”

“Deal.” James’ father grinned and pulled James into a hug. James stood rigid, refusing to react, either to hug back or to pull away. “It’s good to see you. Me and your Mum never get to see you, Sweet Pea.”

“There’s a reason for that Dad,” James said coldly.

“You here alone? You need back-up boy. What’s it about? Drugs?”

“I told you not to talk about it. I’m here with my boss.” James glanced down the street, where he saw Lewis was stood. He hoped he wasn’t in earshot.

“So, who is he now, what’s your cover?” James’ father was trying to tease, from the tone of his voice.

James’ glare grew even colder. “He’s pretending to be my pimp,” he spat out icily. “Keyword here is pretend.”

James’ father looked as if he’d been kicked in the gut. He released his hold on his son and took an unconscious step back. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how many times I can say it but I’ll say sorry forever if I have too. I mean it. I seriously am so sorry Sweet Pea, I am...”

“Yeah yeah, when you’re drunk and maudlin!”

“Not much of a detective, are you? I was drinking Coke. Been sober now, 467 days, don’t even need to go to the AA meetings every week now, can even come into pubs and stay sober.”

“Dad! That’s fantastic, that...” James stopped himself. “Well, so you say,” he said, going back to his frosty voice.

“Not been anywhere near a betting shop now for nearly four months too.”

“There’s online gambling now.”

“Not for me.”

“I have to go. There’s my boss.”

“Don’t be a stranger, eh son. Give your Mum a call. Letter. Anything. Why d’ya have to blame her too, eh? You hate me; I get it. If I could undo it, God knows I would, my darlin’, I would change it all. I’d smash that bastard’s head it before it all started, I would...”

“It’s not just that, is it?” James spat out hatefully. He pushed his father out of the way and headed for Lewis.

“Just know we love you James. We love you.”

*

“Alright?” Lewis asked carefully as James walked back towards him. He had been fairly certain that the man was James’ father before he had got close enough to hear the tail end of the conversation. They were too alike for him to be anything else, almost as tall, but much stockier and broader in build, the man was blond and grey, with the same nose, but more rugged features, handsome rather than James’ pretty features, and also his height was not all legs, but he seems to be more evenly proportioned, with a longer body. Next to his father, James looked even more like a clumsy, leggy foal yet to grow into his height. Not that James was clumsy, he often walked with the grace of a catwalk model, when he wasn’t slouching, as if attempting to hide his height, or merely hide from the world.

As he was now, Lewis noticed.

“Fine. I’m fine.” James said, not looking at him.

“Sure?”

“Yep. Yes. Fine.” He turned back towards the pub.

“No. Come on. Let’s get back to the car.”

James nodded awkwardly, as if he didn’t quite have control of his emotions yet.

*

Once in the car and back onto the Iffley Road Lewis asked James which pub next were they to try. They had compiled a list of likely establishments to find dealers to lead them to major suppliers of heroin in the city, trying to trace how, where and when the contaminant was added to the drug.

“Um.” James said, looking miserable. “I can’t do this tonight. I can’t. I need to go home. I... I need to be alone.”

“What, back to our room do you mean?” Lewis asked, knowing the answer.

“No. Home. We’re so near. I can get out now. It’s just a couple of hundred yards away. Please.”

“Thing is James, it might blow our cover. Who knows who might walk past and see you and then see us out and about and hear who we are meant to be, or see us back at the house at St. Mary’s Road.”

“I know,” James said sadly.

“It’s important James.”

James snorted humourlessly. “They’re addicts. They might die anyway.”

“So it’s okay for whoever to just cut in experimental crap into their smack, is it? You telling me all these people that died, that are dying, that will die if we don’t find the source and stop it, they don’t matter?” Lewis was so angry at James, at his shutting down and shutting him out once again when he thought they had worked through the trust issue, that they were more than work colleagues, more than just friends, he practically roared at James.

James flinched and ducked his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean...”

“Well,” Lewis softened his voice and reached out for James’ shoulder and squeezed as he broke their don’t ask, don’t talk about, rule, “I guess it is hard to have an addict for a parent.”

“M’mm,” James murmured vaguely, nodding and turning his face away.

“So, what’s it to be then?”

“The Saxon Arms Sir, further up, so you need to turn around,” James replied formally, going immediately into work mode, cutting out Robbie harshly in a sergeant-inspector tone that worried Robbie so much. But he knew he couldn’t ever push anything with James. 

He didn’t have to like it though. “Fine,” he replied bluntly. He turned the car around in the next street and didn’t speak again, responding to directions only with a turn of the wheel and use of the indicators. What was the point? James had shut down again.

*

Robbie was laid back in bed, case notes around him, his notebook and pen in his hand, worrying if they were making any progress at all. So far, two big time pushers had been found but he hadn’t been able to get to them yet. It was harder then he thought to establish himself as a dealer, either, since his housemate dealt grass and the dead Dave had dealt heroin. People still turned up wanting to score, but Robbie couldn’t actually sell, that would cross a line Innocent had firmly marked. He was pretty sure Leithbridge Stewart would have give him leave – by any means, of course. He wasn’t so sure about his daughter. But had he enough evidence to shift his command structure further anyway? Hobson was getting disturbing results and he had got the funding and assistance from Osgood, but so far that was all it was, UNIT assisting Home Office and Thames Valley forensic pathology. He could push it even further, but that would make him a little uncomfortable with the ‘by any means’ kind of power it would give him.

He heard stumbling footsteps and a banging of a door, following by a shout of ‘sleep well’ and more heavy, stumbling footsteps. Then he heard a crash against the door and muffled giggles. He thought it was just James but in case it wasn’t he or the lad wasn’t alone he threw the quilt quickly over all the notes and print outs, showing Thames Valley Police ident loud and proud at the top right corner of some sheets, UNIT on others, and, of course, the laptop.

“Hi!” James giggled. He shut the door and smiled. “Wha’ ya doin’ Sir?” 

“You okay James?”

“I’m happy!” he said and started to spin around, turning on his feet, arms out stretched, looking up at the ceiling.

Robbie hurriedly shoved the paperwork and laptop into its case and then into a holdall and pushed it all behind the bed, or rather mattress, as that was all their bed was in this undercover room. All the while he did this he watched James worriedly.

“James...” he began, getting up out of bed.

“I feel dizzy.” James tried to stop and only succeeded in slowing his spin and instead burped rather loudly. “Whoops! Not very sexy. Do you find me sexy?”

James was in khaki cargos cut off at the knee, a baggy tee shirt with beer and ketchup splashed on to it and his hair desperately needed a cut, or shape, his shaved skinhead of weeks ago growing out into formless, un-styled, un-gelled, very un-Hathaway uncontrolled spikes but Robbie himself had forbidden the boy to get an expensive haircut. They were supposed to be living on JSA. He also needed a shave and he had cake crumbs on his chin. He was a long way from his neatly groomed sergeant.

“Always,” Robbie replied as James stumbled as his spinning finally stopped.

James looked down at him. Robbie thought that James was aiming for seductive, but his eyes were out of focus and his pupils blown. As he looked at the unfocused lad, James’ soft hands took Robbie’s face and he was kissed. James tasted of beer, chips, chocolate and a sour, nasty smell that mingled with the normal not nice but worth putting up with cigarette taste-smell.

Robbie extricated himself from the kiss as gently as he could and asked quietly, but with authority, “Did you find anything useful, from our housemates and guests?” After all, it was hours since they got back from yet another pub-crawl for information and informants. James has already been seriously drinking since they had met his father, and had happily accepted the invitation to join them - housemates and friends - all in the living room. The air had hung thick and heavy with cannabis, cigarette, and incense smoke. Robbie had muttered something about being an old man and went upstairs to make himself a cup of tea, take his backache prevention Nurofen he took every night in this awful room, make a discreet forbidden phone call to Lyn, and catch up with his paper work – Robbie had always found copious notes helped him think through a case. James was obviously hell bent on self destruction that night and all Robbie could hope was to pick up the pieces. After all, it wouldn’t hurt their undercover personas any if James was to fraternise and smoke with the others.

He hadn’t expected shy, socially awkward, hating crowds and noise James to stay quite so long though.

“What?” James looked very confused. Robbie watched the thought process play out on James’ suddenly very expressive face. Robbie grinned as the memory dawned that he was an undercover policeman. “Oh. Yeah. That. Not much. Not of use,” he giggled. “Not to you.” He bent forward and whispered in Robbie’s face, “Nothing of use for you as my boss.” Robbie tried not to back away from the weed, fags and beer smell over laid with... what, chocolate and vanilla? 

James leapt back and spread his arms and Robbie worried he was going to spin again. “But lots of use as my boyfriend. Yeah!”

“What? James pet, let me make you a cup of coffee. You’re a bit pissed, yeah. Come to bed love.”

“Come to bed, yeah. Yes. I will.” He began to pull at his tee shirt. But then he stopped. “We need music. Do we need music? Do you think I should have music?”

“What for?”

“So I can strip.”

“I don’t want a striptease pet, I want you to get into bed.” He turned his back on James and walked over to the corner they had nominally made an unofficial kitchenette – at least, sat on an old plastic tray, a toaster and kettle were plugged in a double socket.

“Don’t you fancy me?”

Robbie turned back around. “Yeah, and love you too, you idiot. And you are off your face pet. You need to get into bed.”

James started to hum a tune Robbie didn’t recognise. It was slow and slightly sad and seemed more folk than the strange hybrid music from James band or that awful, mournful, chamber music the boy loved so much.

He had also started to strip, slowly pulling his tee shirt up his torso and trying, and failing to get the movements seductive and in time with the song that he was now half humming and half singing. Robbie suspected the song might be being made up on the spot, as it seemed to be a doomed love song of first unrequited love and then misunderstandings and arguments.

Despite himself Robbie watched, growing more and more aroused, despite wanting desperately to get James into bed to sleep and nothing more.

The drunken, stoned, dance came to an abrupt end as James got his leg tangled in his briefs and he came smashing down onto the floor with a loud crash that made Robbie wince. James was far, far too inebriated to feel it though. Instead he giggled.

Someone else in the house banged and shouted at them to shut the fuck up. James looked up at Robbie and giggled again. “Whoops,” he said, before kicking off the briefs and scrambling up. He moved towards Robbie smiling.

“You gonna fuck me, aren’t you? I know you want to.”

Robbie bit his lip so hard he made it bleed. God, James was gorgeous, naked, aroused, walking towards him.

“I know you want to. You can. I know I’m ready now. Please. Fuck me.”

Robbie didn’t think he could breathe, let alone move. He balled his hands into fists and tried to focus on his breathing. “James,” he began.

James threw himself face down onto the double mattress that was serving as their bed. The same person banged a wall again to complain about the noise James had made as he flopped down.

Robbie tried to move, but he was so hard it hurt. “James,” he began again, surprised how his voice was shaking, “you’re drunk love. And stoned. Maybe...”

James turned over and looked up at Robbie with sorrowful, if drugged, eyes. “You don’t want me?”

“Of course I do, I just think you...”

“Good.” James turned on his side and grabbed his wash bag that sat at his side of the bed on the floor. He pulled out a tube of lubrication. “Bought this ages ago.” He threw it in Robbie’s general direction. 

Despite himself Robbie caught it. “James love...”

“Fuck me. Fuck me now!” James tuned over again, and spread his legs. He looked over his shoulder, confused. “Why are you still over there?” he slurred unhappily.

Robbie tightly clutched the tube in his fist and sighed. He walked over to James and sat down carefully. “James love.” He put his hand gently on James shoulder, trying not to touch anywhere more intimate. 

“You don’t want me?”

“’Course I do. You’ve no idea how much. But this isn’t you love, it isn’t. You’re off your face and out of your tree. I don’t want us doing anything either of us will regret in the morning. And you will regret this, love, I know you. And God knows I will, if I take advantage of you like this. This isn’t how we want the first time, is it?”

“But we’re not us, are we? And it isn’t our first time, not this Robbie and James, so go on, you know you want to.”

James pulled away and pushed up on to his knees, turning to look at Robbie’s reaction as he did so, offering himself to Robbie.

“We are the same people. And police officers don’t tend to shag if they are undercover as couples, pet.” Robbie spoke as quietly as he could, but he doubted anyone could hear them over the noise of Kate’s loud trance music shaking the whole house and Spud’s persistent yelling at her to turn it down.

“I thought you wanted me. I thought we could do this. I think I need to be out of it. I want you to fuck me right now!” James was now encroaching on his space, kneeling up and sliding over his legs. James grabbed his face again to kiss him but Robbie caught his wrists and looked deeply into his pale eyes,

“I love you. But you are in no state, This has more of ‘fuck you Dad’ than ‘fuck me Robbie’ about it, I think, pet. Now, put on your pyjamas and go to sleep.”

Robbie watched as James’ drunken, stoned, mind took on board what he’d been told. His face fell, misery covering the fake lust and happiness the drugs and beer had put there, replacing them with maudlin self-pity. He watched the eyes burn with as yet unshed tears and the face cloud with anger,

“Yeah. Maybe. Hate him.” James pulled out his pyjama trousers from under his pillow and clumsily pulled them on. Robbie helped his negotiate the quilt to get under it. His face screwed up and he began to sob gut-wrenching, drunken, tears. “I love him. Why do I still love him?”

“Coz he’s your old man, I guess. It’ll be complicated,” was all Robbie could think of to say. He leaned forward and kissed James on the forehead. “I’ll get you some coffee and a big glass of water. You’re to drink both, mind; else you’ll feel complete shit in the morning.

James fell back, his head hitting the pillow. “Shit, I feel awful!”

“That’ll be mixing your grains then smoking dope, no doubt,” Robbie said dryly.

“I can’t quite decide if the room is spinning out of my head or the room is trying to spin into my head. It fucking spins when I close my eyes, whichever.”

Robbie realised that James had been speaking far more with a local accent. It hadn’t hit him how common and rural the lad had sounded until his usual lovely RP voice was back in place. “I’ll get that water. Try turning over on your side.”

“You do fancy me, don’t you?” James asked as he began to walk away to get some water.

“Of course I do. You are bloody gorgeous, pet.”

“So why don’t you want to fuck me?”

“I do. Just not when the room is spinning, eh?” It had been a long time since Robbie had to deal with drunks and their persistent, strange logic and obsessions. He just had to be calm and in control, he reminded himself.

“But...”

Dear God! The boy was kicking the quilt of and pulling off his pyjamas again.

“James, I said we should wait a bit...”

“But I want to. You should, now, then we can move on and... Oh shit!”

Robbie didn’t know he could still move so fast, but he was there in seconds, rubbish bin under James’ chin, holding his forehead while James retched and retched.

Once it was over, Robbie tried to cover James with the quilt but James pushed it off, arguing childishly that he was hot. He flopped back into the pillows, hair damp with sweat. “I’m a bloody idiot,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Feel better?”

“Room’s still spinning. Sorry.”

Robbie smiled, “I’ll get you that water now. Think you could cope with a coffee? It’ll help.”

“It’ll be that filthy instant stuff.”

“Well, what with your job seekers and my incapacity, we’re not exactly made of money now. It has caffeine, it’ll do the job love.”

James nodded tightly as he said, “Okay. I’ll try,” but turned over onto his side as Robbie awkwardly stood up. By the time the kettle had boiled, James was snoring loud, drunken, snores.

Robbie smiled down at James and, adding more sugar and powdered milk, had the coffee himself. He climbed into bed and putting down the coffee on the floor beside him, reached for the holdall, intending to take out the toxicology primer Laura had recommended. Instead he looked down at James, lying on his side, back to him, grey checked pyjama trousers still pulled down, his half of the quilt still kicked off, stretched out on his side, backside almost touching Robbie’s leg, and...

It was so difficult. He was so hard it hurt. He could just... couldn’t he? In all the times James had led him on so far before shutting down due to flashbacks or panic attacks, Robbie had never been tempted to do this. Yes, he was certainly used to taking care of himself, so to speak. He had been since Valerie had been gone. And he had certainly taken himself off to the bathroom at his or James’ flat once James had fallen asleep, but not so often. Your boyfriend flashing back to multi rapes and beatings or being sexually abused as a small child tended to kill the mood and put you off somewhat. 

But this time was different. Completely different. James had been offering himself, rather worryingly, offering himself up for one thing and one thing alone, just like a tart. And the other different thing was he was now completely unconscious, drugged and drunk and snoring like a pig.

But still beautiful.

Gorgeous.

Ashamed of himself, Robbie reached down inside his own blue pyjama bottoms and, looking at James, took care of himself, as it were. 

*

After Robbie had cleaned himself up with tissues – and he certainly was not proud of himself – he leant over, meaning to push James’ pyjama bottoms up and pull the quilt over him. Despite the heat, he had never even slept with James topless, let alone in this amount of disarray, James would be mortified once he woke up a little more sober and straight.

He paused, horrified, as he noticed the white striped scarring on both cheeks, the tops of his thighs and lower back, plus a couple of ugly, redder gouges, they were old, years old, possibly even older than the scar on James’ cheek. Feeling disgusted and angry for James, he pulled up the trousers and covered him with the quilt. As he did, he noticed the thinner white lines on the top of his thighs, to the side. These were not made by a belt or cane, however; these were more cuts. More self-harm.

Oh James, Robbie thought sadly.

James sighed and muttered something, and grabbed at the quilt now at his waist and pulled it up, clutching the corner and pulling it to his mouth, like a child, a small child, Robbie thought. 

Then he noticed the cigarette burns on the tops of James’ arms, along with more faint, thin white lines.

Oh lad, he thought, you burnt yourself too.

But no, Robbie’s gaze travelled along the shoulder blade and back and saw more, far out of James’ reach. Twenty neat round little scars, twenty ancient cigarette burns.

Not all the abuse had been sexual, obviously. Not all the scars were on the inside, either. And Robbie had put James’ modesty and shyness down to a combination of his beliefs, his surviving rape, and his general lack of self-confidence that left the lad more than a little addicted to hiding behind baggy clothes, layers of clothes, and foundation and powder.

He hid these scars under the clothes as he hid his chin under the foundation.

Robbie vowed to make the lad feel good about himself as much as possible. As for James’ feelings about his Dad, he would hazard a guess that these were down to him. Circumstantial, he knew, but, he knew in his gut, he had guessed correctly.

But it was confusing, because he had seen a father who loved his son and was desperate to be forgiven, to have a place in his son’s life. A man finally tackling his addictions for a son who still wouldn’t forgive. It was so sad, he could understand why James wouldn’t, but as a father, with the acrimony at his and Mark’s parting after he had been so grief-stricken he had been unable to comfort his children, he could understand Hathaway senior’s desire for forgiveness. That insight and understand of his father was something he would not share with James, as he would never forgive him and shut him out forever. He knew his James too well, despite those hidden depths of mystery he had yet to uncover.

**Author's Note:**

> To those who are reading Poisoned Minds my most humble apologies - RL has dealt my daughter and I a real kick in the teeth, as if we didn't have enough! I really do not have the time or the mental capacity to deal with its complex plot at present. I will finish it though, I promise, and then White. I've promised my daughter, I will be do it for her, so you guys will get to read it one day. Sorry for the long, long wait :(


End file.
